The Four Spiritual Secrets - February 3, 2014

“If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether My teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” - (John 7:17)

The Apostle John records the claim of Jesus that His teaching is not merely the teaching of another Rabbi coming down the pike. His teaching is the teaching of God. If we want to prove that, we must choose to do what He is teaching. When we do it we will know it. The doing leads to the knowing according to Jesus. The intellectually sophisticated person usually claims: “When I know it I will do it.” Jesus told us when we do it we will know it.

That profiles what we call “discipleship” and “apprenticeship.” These two words are actually synonymous. A disciple is literally “a learner who is doing what they’re learning and learning what they’re doing.”

I once heard the vice president of a large shipyard explain to the business community of Norfolk, Virginia how they had just been given another contract to build yet another large aircraft carrier. He said he could answer their question in one word: “apprenticeship.”

He explained that a college student takes in huge amounts of information and then regurgitates that information periodically. After doing that for four years they are given a piece of paper that says they’re an educated person. But often they cannot actually do anything. He explained that at the shipyard they put a person in the classroom for two weeks and in the shipyard for two weeks. After five years the graduates of their apprenticeship school build large aircraft carriers.

Have you been apprenticed in your journey of faith? Are you apprenticing others in their faith journey?